SWEET HOME, Ore.  —  An Oregon woman who is out $400,000 after falling for a well-known Internet scam says she wasn't a sucker or an easy mark. Janella Spears of Sweet Home says she simply became curious when she received an e-mail promising her $20.5 million if she would only help out a long-lost relative identified as J.B. Spears with a little money up front. Spears told KATU-TV about the scammers' ability to identify her relative by name was persuasive. "That's what got me to believe it," She said. "So, why wouldn't you send over $100?" Her family and bank officials told her it was all a scam, she said, and begged her to stop, but she persisted because she became obsessed with getting paid. The scheme is often called the "Nigerian scam" and it's familiar to many people with e-mail accounts. It still exists and it still works. Spears first sent $100 through an untraceable wire service as directed by the scammers. Then, more multi million dollar promises followed so long as she sent more money.

This really is an awful thing. I feel bad for her. But at the same time. What a moron. Not like, a minor moron, like a ginormous moron. Holy cow. At what point in the 400 thousand do you realize you're not getting paid? Is it after the first hundred thousand? These people have e-mailed me before. It's a joke. I laugh it off. One time I started an e-mail relationship with these people. I get these scams like 17 times a day. I love how the her family and the bank told her to cut it out and she was hell bent on getting paid. She thought she could throw more money at the scam artists and they'd pay her. Jokers. You know who the worst is in this whole situation? The husband. Not only does he let her blow her own money on this crap, he then let's her go into his retirement fund and wipe the thing out. Actually. That can't be right. I think the husband is an inside man. I think he wanted to divorce her but he couldn't. If he did the wife would get half. Now that they have nothing, he can leave her, and get a nice fat chunk of the 400K. Maybe he walks away with an extra hundred thousand. This guy is brilliant. I need to work for the government. I'd be solving crimes left and right.